Staying home, going crazy, and done working

Today's been tough. I am a homebody. I could stay home for a week, maybe more, and be quite content. I would still have contact with people of course, I couldn't be a loner, but I would be home and happy. My son, however, is not like me. He can only handle so many days of being home before his energy level explodes and his behavior deteriorates. He has reached that point! Since Hubby and I were up so late on Sunday night we decided not to go to our Bible study on Monday night. Tuesday morning, the kids and I all slept in (which was a terrific surprise!) and we ended up missing Women's Bible study at church. Tuesday night football was cancelled and there was no AWANA on Wednesday night for some reason. We didn't have any plans on Thursday and Hubby came home from work after the kiddos were down for bed. I have enjoyed being home a lot more this week and it was a wonderful treat to have time at home with my husband three nights in a row. But ME (3.5) is going stir crazy. And it's driving me crazy. He needs to go out and he needs to play. I was considering taking him out somewhere tonight (we don't do Halloween) but my car was at the mechanic's and he wasn't able to bring it back until close to bathtime/bedtime. So maybe tomorrow. There's nothing on the agenda tomorrow but I better find something to do or we might not survive the day!

On a happier note, I was finally able to turn in a report for work that has been hanging over my head and causing me some stress. It felt so good to turn it in yesterday and be done with it! I told Hubby that I felt like I now have all the time in the world to do so many other things but that's not really true. It's not like it was taking up a lot of my time. I wasn't working on it nearly as much as I should have been. But now, my mental energies are freed up from the stress of it and I feel like I can now use my afternoons (nap time) to do other things without feeling guilty for not working! (Big sigh) It feels so good! As much as I love taking on new reports, I don't get them finished before the love and excitement fade so they drag on. I think I'm done with the lengthy reports. I've always struggled with being disciplined enough to work from home but it's gotten even harder now so I just don't think I can do it. My supervisor is on maternity leave but when she comes back I think I need to talk with her about just editing reports rather than writing them myself. If she's up for that, I could conceivably keep my job even though we'll be leaving the area in a few months. Editting does not take much time and I enjoy doing it so hopefully that will work out. I really wouldn't be upset though if it doesn't work. It's been nice to have a job where I can work from home, but my main "job" is mommy and that comes first.

A rare politcal post from me that's not really mine

I don't write much (if at all) about politics. I am still following this election a little bit, but my mind is made up. I am somewhat tired of election stuff and if I get too much into it, it just makes me scared for the future of this country. At this point, I do not read too much election material. Instead, when I come across it, I simply use that as a reminder to PRAY! I did recently come across this post however, and I thought it was worth linking to because it so accurately reflects my own thoughts!

Blogging and old babies

Even though I had my old blog for quite a while, I feel like a newbie when it comes to blogging on here. I struggled to blog over there because I always second guessed whether or not my readers would even care to know what I did with my day. (The funny thing though is that one of my favorite blogs to read is one where the author documents just about every aspect of her day every day.) So I wouldn't blog if I didn't think it was worthy of my blog and that resulted in not meeting one of my goals for blogging - documenting the realities of my days.

MG (6 mos) had her six month check up today. Her pediatrician is this older grandfatherly gentleman who is great but so incredibly laid back about everything. On the one hand that's good but on the other hand, sometimes it would be nice to be given a but more specific instruction about things. Like for example, feeding solid foods to babies. I remember a little bit about what I did for ME (3.5), but not specifically. Last night, which was the first night I started her on rice cereal, I googled all kinds of info about what food babies could eat at what ages. Truthfully, a lot of it probably really doesn't matter anyway. Her doctor's only concern when it comes to feeding babies is that they not get anything that could be a choking hazard. Anything else is up to me I guess. So, since I prefer a little more guidance and direction, I will probably refer to my google search material and use that to decide what foods she gets when.

I can't believe my baby girl is already six months old. I was away for the weekend with a few friends for a quilting weekend. (MG (6 mos) was with me of course but ME (3.5) was at his granparents' house because Hubby was at a conference.) I had decided to wait until she was six months to start her on solids. She turned six months while we were away so I figured I'd do it soon after we got back. Based on my research, I really didn't think she needed to begin solid foods before this and selfishly I really didn't look forward to doing it because I already feel like I have too many things to do in a day. I'm behind on what feels like 1,001 things and I knew that entering the world of solid foods would only detract from the little time I do have to get to those 1,001 things. Don't get me wrong, I knew I would do it when she needed me to but I didn't think she needed it before now and I was certainly not wanting to rush anything along. However, when I got home last night, I was really excited about the idea of feeding her cereal and seeing what she did with it. She did so well! I think the fact that we waited as long as we did helped a lot. With ME (3.5) I started rice cereal and then stopped for a few weeks because he was just spitting it out. Two weeks later we started again and he got the hang of it. Anyway, she ate more than I thought she would and afterwards, I cleaned her up a bit and put her in her exersaucer. At one point I looked at her and I just couldn't believe it - all of a sudden she was an old baby. I know, I know - she's still young and she's still a baby but now my baby is eating solid foods and playing independently in an exersaucer. Not to mention the fact that she's also begun sitting up in the past week. She's so OLD! How did it happen? I'm enjoying her babyhood so much. It's exciting to see her personality emerge and it makes me excited to see who she'll become in the future. But on the other hand, I could just keep her like this forever! I've heard some people say that when they were done having kids they just "knew it." But I can't imagine the day when I wouldn't want a baby in my home. Maybe it will happen eventually but I just can't imagine it.

Hubby's across the street at our neighbor's house watching the world series with some coworkers. We were up really late last night and I'm tired! I intended to go to bed early, curl up with a book, and actually read for a while. (Can't say when I last did that! Reading these days is at most a magazine article or a page or two at a time of whatever book I keep in the bathroom!) But here I am at the computer and I keep having to tend to my boy who was put to bed an hour and a half ago! It's a good thing he has an early bedtime! Alright, I'm off to go read. Eventually.

Begin again

This is my second blog. And since I don't really blog all that often, why would I possibly need a second blog? One reason - anonymity. I began my first blog as a private blog to document life and help me sort through and process things. In an effort to be transparent, I opened up my blog to others which then resulted in people I know having access to my blog. The result was really the death of my blog. I don't really feel like I can be honest and transparent anymore. Part of the problem is that I don't take the time to blog regularly. So when I am moved to blog it is usually because I need to process things and of course the only things that need to be processed are those that are negative or stressful. The good things never need processing, just documenting! So I feared that my other blog (which was being read by people I knew) was becoming too negative and since I have friends (who read my blog) whose blogs are nothing but songs and praises about life and motherhood, I felt like I could no longer blog honestly. And I see no point in blogging anything that's not completely honest. So here I am beginning anew. I don't intend to be negative. My intentions are to blog about all kinds of things that happen in life but this is my place to document all of it - the good and the bad.

Update: I just learned you can back-date posts! Woo hoo! I intend to pull my older blog posts over here but it will take some time - probably one at a time.

Legos and TV

After MG (5 mos) was born, I got into the bad habit of letting my son watch too much television. It's been something that I've been working on decreasing but some days, when there seems like there's just too much to do and not enough time to do it, the televsion buys me some much needed time. I've been brainstorming different activities and things that ME (3.5) can do instead of watch TV while I am doing other things but those things take planning, organizing, and being prepared. Really, I'm letting my all-or-nothing perfectionism get in the way of implementing these activities for now but that's another story. Anyway, I've discovered the secret to keeping the TV off in our home - keep the living floor messy with legos overnight. Usually, ME (3.5) needs to clean up all of his toys in the living room before he goes to bed at night. Well recently he wasn't able to so the legos just stayed out. The next morning, when he wanted to watch TV I told him he could as soon as the legos were cleaned up. Well, he played for HOURS before he asked to watch TV again! Wonderful! And so far today, the TV has been off all day and ME (3.5) is cleaning up his legos playing all by himself in the living room. So that's my new trick! Keep the living room a mess at night (which goes against every thing in me!) to keep the TV off in the morning! That and have a construction crew in front of your house repaving the road for a few days - that will provide hours of entertainment for a three-year-old boy!